A Cold War Missile Treaty That's Doing Us Harm

The U.S.-Soviet INF pact doesn't address the Iranian threat.

By

John R. Bolton
And Paula A. DeSutter

August 15, 2011

'Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: They last while they last." So said Charles de Gaulle a half-century ago, but he could have been describing the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreement signed by the United States and the Soviet Union. The INF Treaty has far outlived its usefulness in its current form—so it should either be changed or thrown out.

The Cold War strategic reality that existed in 1988 has passed into history. And yet the U.S. (and Russia) remain constrained by the INF Treaty's terms,...